Increased Bullet Speed?

Rear Admiral

Have you guys ever increased bullet speed slightly just to see how it plays? Bullets seem about as fast as missiles and it always feels like you can almost out run your own shots while hitting the afterburner. Right now it can be difficult to lead your targets as the bullets hardly get there in time, especially when your target is in constant full burn on harder difficulty levels. Not impossible, but much more difficult then say standard SecretOps.

Yes it could potentially have huge consequences balance wise, depending on how much an increase. but it might be an interesting test.

Unknown Enemy

Well, it goes without saying that faster bullets make it easier to hit things. Bullets in Standoff are generally slower than WCP bullets - because that's how things were in WC2, and that's what we wanted to replicate as closely as possible .

Rear Admiral

I understand that, and the look is one thing. but in the game I can't honestly say it ever FEELS right in the new environment. Somethings probably should be adjusted when moving over to a full 3d engine. In WC2 I guarantee it's actually quite easy to lead and hit your target. Due to the smaller distances involved, large hit detection, and just being a sprite based game. I don't think Standoff feels like WC2 at all. If you really wanted to translate that, it would have to be faster.

I'm assuming that it would be as simple as a table change. But if things were speed up 10 - 15% I bet it would feel better. I say, give it a try for fun, as long as it doesn't hurt anything. The result might be interesting.
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As I have pointed out it really is a separate consideration to how something feels, but now that you mention it, I am quite curious. I'll have to look into it. How long does it take for a bullet in WC2 to reach its maximum distance, and is it really the same in Standoff? I imagine it would be quite hard to tell in wc2. Cycles would be an issue. Perhaps WCA would be better comparison as it's properly timed.

Captain

I kind of wonder whether you are even playing the same game as me. The only times it's difficult to hit your target in Standoff are when you're flying a Crossbow, and it was pretty difficult to hit your target when you were flying a Crossbow in Special Operations as well. Difficulty in Standoff tends to come from the huge scale of the engagements and the situational awareness requirements that imposes.

Rear Admiral

No, there is that aspect of difficulty. But that is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about chasing a ship in full burn on a difficult setting, heck even normal, and my shots not even reaching him, It is impossible to predict where he will go for the time it takes my shots to get there. In order to hit a target you have to get ridiculously close which isn't always possible, or out gun him playing chicken. Or when he is targeting something else. Which is quite hard on the simulator where you are the only target. That's not the way WC2 was.

Would you agree that a shot should be faster then a missle?

Increase it just a little bit for jokes, and tell me it doesn't feel better.

Captain

I'd say you weren't close enough to your target then (Anybody who has watched my Standoff videos will know I tend to fly with my fighter's nose practically touching my target's engines). Standoff is particularly difficult amongst space shooters, yes, and this is the way it was intended to be. There are plenty of threads in the forum which contain the question "shouldn't the game be a bit easier?" and the answer "No" from either Quarto or Eder. It's hardly impossible - there's no mission I've not beaten on Nightmare and I'm far from the only person who can say that. WC2, on the other hand, is particularly easy amongst space shooters.

I don't think it is particularly difficult to hit enemy fighters, even Sartha; sure, they dodge around a bit, but their evasive patterns are fairly predictable and they don't move that much either (that and you only need 2-3 solid hits to cripple a Sartha anyway).

Would I agree a shot should be faster than a missile? Eh, maybe. Shots and dumbfires travel about the same speed, I'm fine with that. Standoff dumbfires are ridiculously deadly compared to other Wing Commander games, but I quite liked having 2-4 "OK, this ship dies now" buttons.

Standoff's sheer speed gives it, in some ways, as much in common with Starlancer as it has with WC2, excepting it lacks the "fail the mission once to figure out how to beat it" mission design. I adored Starlancer (except for the mission design), and I like Standoff's difficulty, so personally I wouldn't change the flight engine at all.

My point exactly. No other space shooter is like that, definitely not wc2 which is what they are trying to mimic in a 3d engine. Forcing a player to have to do that is not good game play. It's as if you are crippling your player by making them fight under water. Especially when,as you point out, many of the ships can't do that.

In fact in wing commander as a whole, on harder difficulty modes, you simply can't get your noes right on your target's engine because they are in constant afterburner. And you have a lot of targets in this game to get through. The game is effectively broken at Nightmare.

I'll be the first to say that mabee I'm not the greatest player. But I feel as if some one lobbed off my left foot and left arm and then tossed me into a gladiatorial arena. And then told it's because I'm just not good enough of a fighter. Well, Yah. But it's not as if I've been given any chance. And that's the difference between something that is just difficult and something that is abusive.

Captain

Rear Admiral

Well you are in a distinct minority, of a minority. Just because 10 human gods are able to abuse the engine's characteristics to win, doesn't mean the game is fair. Don't get me wrong I love this game's story and the sheer heart put into it, but I wouldn't call it fun.

I should point out that I've beaten Wing Commander Secret Missions 2. And I'm calling this game unfair. Entirely because my shots are just too slow.

Vice Admiral

I like the bullet aspects in wc2 and like what standoff did in the vision engine. I believe it brings a nice level of difficulty to the game. I wish there was more fuel for afterburning but it's the same story there to.

Commodore

I found no difficulty adapting to the speed of shots. Rather I should say I hadn't suspected anything wrong having played through the winning path.

If shots are indeed slower I would find that it would make evasion simpler. Vatari coming at me with full particle cannons don't bother me as much when there's room to dodge. It worked just fine for me.

Hardest missions for me were when I was flying a Stiletto. Like flying a paper airplane, and cuts just as deep. Just look at it from the challenge perspective.

I've had some brilliant moments behind the stick but despite some skillful maneuvering I still consider myself mediocre at best. It is winnable but maybe your tactics are more in question? Make sure to use your tactical map as it does wonders for telling who's after who. Where can you provide the most leverage?

Yes, the Stiletto's short-ranged mass driver guns mean that you have to get in close, which is deadly for light fighters especially when they are fighting something with rear turrets. Still, I would rather be flying a Stiletto than the even more fragile Epee or Ferret.

Spaceman

I too came here to the forums asking this same question. After playing the game for the first time yesterday and jumping into the simulator. I am unable to shoot and hit anything. The velocity of the projectiles is just barley more than what my current ships velocity is. This makes it impossible to shoot at anything and hit it, unless I'm crashing into it. I just got done checking out some gameplay videos on Youtube and what I'm experiencing vs what I see on the youtube video is not the same. There is some sort of bug or glitch that has made my weapons have a very low velocity.

Captain

Having to do deflection shooting in any game like Wing Commander is sort of a fundamental conceit of the game, but I think it would be interesting to see a game where the ships' weapons are more direct line-of-sight and instant (but with faster ships and more ability to jink and dodge to compensate) and where missiles are more or less instant death if they hit.

Vice Admiral

Having to do deflection shooting in any game like Wing Commander is sort of a fundamental conceit of the game, but I think it would be interesting to see a game where the ships' weapons are more direct line-of-sight and instant (but with faster ships and more ability to jink and dodge to compensate) and where missiles are more or less instant death if they hit.

Well, XF5700MANTIS had that, and that was not a very succesfull game(the CD-rom version was OK around 1992, with about 150+ missions in total, and the "live-action actors", full speech, but "filmed with a potato" by today's standards and limited animation).

Captain

I meant more that the act of lining up a shot against a fast-moving target would be the difficult part; in my head, it's more like a space version of Strike Commander where your Vulcan is pretty deadly if you can actually hit the enemy with it, and you spend a lot of time dodging enemy missiles and lining up shots.

My point was that Wing Commander games have always been reasonably grind-y (to different levels between games) and usually came down to your short-range deflection shooting skill and ability to pump lots of shots into enemies before their shields regenerate. Your shots move so slow that even with ITTS you have to be close to hit consistently that it gets past the enemy shield regeneration. I do like that armor and shields are much lower in Standoff, which makes missions in certain ships (*cough* Gladius *cough) much more tense. I guess I'm more of a fan of "fewer, deadlier, more skilled enemies" than fighting big swarms where you just have to sort of grind through waves of enemy dudes.

Vice Admiral

I meant more that the act of lining up a shot against a fast-moving target would be the difficult part; in my head, it's more like a space version of Strike Commander where your Vulcan is pretty deadly if you can actually hit the enemy with it, and you spend a lot of time dodging enemy missiles and lining up shots.

In WC4 you have the stormfire gun, that does about thesame. And if you had shields(in the situation you are suggesting, unshielded but armored would be better), I would really, buff them up, so I could relax in my much bigger luxurious ship and take pot shots at your tiny litte starfighter. The closest thing that matches your desired gameplay, from what I could make out, would be starlancer(And that is still today playable on a modern system, and a great game).

In Mantis, later on in the game you got a higpowered laser, line up a smaller target like a fighter(the "realistic" part of the game engine requires that you maintain a distance on your target and pursuing/chasing it is simply impossible because of the realistic spaceflight model), take the shot, and you need over a minute while the cannon recharges, you will then have to resort to the less effective mass drivers or (very limited)missiles if you missed. Try that game if you are willing to look past the low resolution and terrible acting, and while challenging, if you manage to beat it(I did), you do not want to revisit it.

From a gameplay perspective, lots of people prefer a WW2-era-like gameplay, like Wing Commander/Privateer/Starlancer and X-wing/TIE Fighter or Freespace. That is the reason some of us still play the space combat games today, because they are great fun, and modern WW2 flight combat sims are still around. I can not bring myself to play pacific strike again though, it looks better in my memories.